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ne of them is white. I don't suppose you'll have much time to collect things, but I keep hoping that some day, if I live, you'll command a ship of your own, and take me with you, as they do take scientific men some voyages. I hope I shall live. I don't think I get any worse. Cripples do sometimes live a long time. I asked Dr. Brown if he believed any cripple had ever lived to be a hundred, and he said he didn't know of one, nor yet ninety, nor eighty, for I asked him. But he's sure cripples have lived to be seventy. If I do, I've got fifty-four years yet. That sounds pretty well, but it soon goes, if one has a lot to do. Mr. Wood doesn't think it likely you could command a vessel for twenty years at least. That only leaves thirty-four for scientific research, and all the arranging at home besides. I've given up one of my books to plotting this out in the rough, and I see that there's plenty of English work for twenty years, even if I could count on all my time, which (that's the worst of having a bad back and head!) I can't. There's one thing I should like to find out, if ever you think of going to Japan, and that's how they dwarf big plants like white lilacs, and get them to flower in tiny pots. Isaac says he thinks it must be continual shifting that does it--shifting and forcing. But I fancy they must have some dodge of taking very small cuttings from particular growths of the wood. I mean to try some experiments. I am marking your journeys on a map, and where anything happens to you I put A, for adventure, in red ink. I have put A where you picked up Dennis O'Moore. He must be very nice. Tell him I hope I shall see him some day, and your Scotch friend too; I hope they won't make you quite forget your poor friend Charlie. "P.S.--Since I finished, a parcel came. What do you think Lorraine has done? He has paid for me to be a life member of a great London library, and sent me the catalogue. I can have out fifteen books at a time. There are hundreds of volumes. I can't write any more, my back aches so with putting crosses against the books I want to read. The catalogue is rather heavy. I think I shall use one of my books to make a list in of what I want to read during this year. Isn't it good of Lorraine? Poor Lorraine!" Having devoured my own letters, I looked up to see how my comrades were enjoying their share of the budget which the Halifax postmaster had faithfully forwarded. The expression on Dennis O'Moore'
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